


The Victim Experience

by J_Baillier



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Friendship, Gallows Humor, Gen, Halloween, Horror, Humor, London, Murder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Torture, Sherlock being his typical sassy self, Suspense, The sociology and psychology of horror as entertainment, casefic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:41:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26876107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Baillier/pseuds/J_Baillier
Summary: A case takes Sherlock and John deep into the seedy underbelly of the haunted attractions industry. With audiences craving more and more intense experiences, is a real murder the next logical step?
Relationships: Greg Lestrade & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes & Greg Lestrade, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson
Comments: 262
Kudos: 227





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [[an index and guide to all my Sherlock stories](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25011148)]
> 
> Betaed by Elldotsee, the Pirate Queen Noodle and Halloween hostess with the mostess.

"Close the window; it's freezing in here," Sherlock complains from where he's sprawled on the sofa.

"How come you never pick your clothes with the season in mind? In July, you're in that heavy coat but now that it's late October, you’re flouncing around in that skimpy dressing gown. Do you even own a cardigan or a jumper?" John asks, latching the window and ending the draft.

Outside, the pale October sun is barely grasping onto the horizon. The last of the leaves from Regent’s Park are blowing down the nearby streets, crimson red and plum yellow. If it wasn't for the bite of the coming winter in the air, London's green spaces would be packed with locals relishing the weather. It's a Saturday; John had worked a short shift at the clinic and come home to find Sherlock in precisely in the same position he'd been in when he'd ducked out of the door just after seven in the morning.

"I'll have you know I own several," Sherlock replies petulantly, and picks up a book from the floor. He opens it seemingly at random and John gets a glimpse of the skull-adorned cover and the title: _The Anatomy of Evil_.

“Some light reading?” He teases, but a knock on the door interrupts Sherlock’s answer.

The intruder is a welcome one — Lestrade, cheeks pinch-pink from being outside and a bit winded from taking the stairs two at a time. Even John can deduce why and decides against putting the kettle on because inevitably he'll soon be jogging after the spindle-legged Sherlock to survey a crime scene.

"Where?" Sherlock asks the DI, none too enthusiastically. He rarely ever is at this stage because there is no telling how interesting he will judge the evening's criminal offerings to be.

"Shoscombe Lane. Funhouse employee killed. American, so there's going to be pressure to do everything quickly for the repatriation."

"Funhouse?" John asks.

"Some haunted house type of thing," Lestrade explains.

"Like London Dungeon?"

Lestrade shrugs. "I suppose."

Sherlock has now dragged himself to a sitting position.

"And what makes it something you think the Met can't solve? Not that I have high hopes for that in _any_ case, but indulge me before I decide whether to bother finding trousers: why should I care?"

"The killer staged her as a prop. Took hours until anyone realised it was the real deal."

"How _did_ they recognise it as a real corpse?" Sherlock asks.

"The owner said that someone safeworded in that room and they turn on the lights. Another employee had a fright when they spotted her."

"Appropriate," Sherlock replies from behind the tips of his index fingers resting gently on his lower lip.

John can see the cogs turning, the wheels of decision-making spinning. And before long, Sherlock rises to his feet, his posture having gone suddenly as if a switch had been flipped from slouchy and tedium-ridden to the bloodthirsty whippet he is when working.

His eyes narrow as he pins Lestrade down with his gaze. "Body still at the crime scene?"

"Yeah, but not for long. They shut the place down, of course, but Bray's on duty and he's got another crime scene to cover after this, so we need to get there fast."

Anthony Bray is a new coroner in town — very by-the-book and thus sceptical of outsiders interfering with proper procedure. Obviously, that makes him clash sabres with Sherlock frequently.

"Are you in a panda or your own car?" Sherlock shouts from the bedroom into which he has disappeared to change clothes.

"My own. I'm not daft."

"Jury's out," Sherlock replies. There's some shuffling and a thump from the direction of the bedroom and, in a few minutes, he emerges in one of his black suits and a burgundy shirt and heads for the coat rack.

John has never understood how his hair stays looking precisely as styled as it does, even on days when he just lounges on the sofa.

Sherlock doesn't linger long enough to even finish weaving his scarf around his neck before tearing down the stairs. Lestrade is quick to follow in pursuit.

"Hold on," John calls out, struggling to get his wax coat on. He hurries down the steps after the receding back of the Detective Inspector. "What did that thing you said about safewords mean?"

______________

Lestrade leads them into the building through a back entrance labelled "Staff". They walk through dressing rooms with racks and racks of elaborate thematic costumes, Styrofoam heads sporting horrific masks, period hats and messy wigs. There are makeup stains and pieces of tape everywhere. An employee is washing masks covered in black sooty grime, fake blood and some kind of green-coloured gel substance. The lighting in the narrow back corridors is low and there is heavy soundproofing, presumably to prevent the backstage bustle to be heard inside the attraction. Even though they haven't entered the audience spaces yet, John has already realised that this isn't the carnival attraction he had been expecting. No, this is serious. All the props and gear look like something out of a Hollywood feature film, and the place is huge. They squeeze past several bored-looking crime scene techs in white plastic coveralls. Perhaps they've been instructed to get out while Sherlock works his magic.

"Staff have been mostly rounded up in the admin area for interviews, and the owner's been escorted to NSY for questioning. You get ten minutes with the body”, Lestrade tells Sherlock over his shoulder as they make their way even deeper into the bowels of what is looking increasingly like hell. "I also told them to turn off the background music. The saw-screeching was driving us all barmy."

One more doorway, and they are in a round room staged to look like a slaughterhouse. The smell is very genuine, John notes, and sees Sherlock crinkle his nose. As far as John can tell, the animal carcasses hanging from the ceiling are real. There is also a real-looking chainsaw on the floor, and he wonders if it's just kept there or if someone simulates doing something to these carcasses with them. From one of the carcass hooks hangs a corpse made artfully from very authentic-looking materials, and some sort of a drip hose seems to be delivering a steady stream of fake blood which has formed a puddle on the floor underneath. In buckets just left of the doorway John sees real-looking human body parts.

He suppresses a shudder.

The most morbid attraction in the room, however, is on one of the large metal tables: a real human body. It's a woman clothed in a Victorian-looking costume, with a large, black stain covering most of her shirt front. A gaping wound in her neck appears to be the cause of the bloodshed.

The room is well-lit now, but John suspects that when the attraction is in operation, the lighting is very different. He spots strings of red LED strips and a smoke machine in the corner, still coughing up a bit of the stuff.

Sherlock has already launched into the expected barrage of questions, directed mostly at Lestrade. "How many staff members are stationed in this room during a performance?"

Lestrade consults his notes. "Just one. The one with the chainsaw."

"I assume it's not the murder weapon," John comments. On closer inspection, the saw's usual, rounder blade and chains have been removed and a longer sword-like blade has been added in.

Sherlock is standing by the body, gloves already on. "She was strangled, then bled. Presumably to kill her as quietly as possible."

"If you cut someone's throat, how much can they scream?" Lestrade asks.

"Depends on the damage to vocal cords and the windpipe," John says.

"Defensive lacerations on the fingers consistent with a thin wire," Sherlock says, raising the hand for John and the DI to see. No smearing of blood on her neck, which points to her being dead by the time the cut was made. Otherwise, she would have raised her hand to her neck again."

"They found a trail of blood leading from the table to another back door," Lestrade says, pointing in the direction opposite from where they'd entered. There's a rarely used corridor back there since this is the intersection between two attractions."

"Two attractions? Two haunted houses?" John asks.

"There are several sections to this whole thing," Lestrade says, once again flipping through his pad. " _The Bloody Manor_ , _The Lost Souls Gateway,_ _The_ _Red Circle_ and _The_ ––"

" _Heretics' Dungeon_ ", Sherlock interjects, scowling at John. "Seriously, John, I would have expected you to learn to use the drive in for some background research."

"Not everyone can memorise an entire website in ten seconds like you," John mutters. "I wasn't aware they ate heretics back in the day," John says to the room at large while pulling on disposable gloves. "Explains her costume, though."

"The owner said she doesn't work in this section. She's from _The_ _Bloody Manor_. The corridors staff use connect just behind the wall."

"Which section is this, then?" he asks, indicating the room with his palm. Everywhere he turns, he spots new, imaginative and gruesome details.

"This is the fourth section, called _The Red Circle_. They require a waiver to enter it," Lestrade explains.

"Maybe they put her here to hide the body until they could transport it outside with no one seeing and dispose of it," John suggests.

"Hide it?" Sherlock asks. "Oh, how relaxing it must be to rely on such inane logic without seeing its flaws. There are countless prop lockers in the corridors, presumably outside every event room, so that the gear for that room could be easily taken in and out in the low lighting. Some of it is quite heavy, too. Would be easy to shove a body in there. She was obviously killed backstage. Why go to the trouble of dragging her into the customer space? Just for the workout? No, whoever put her here wanted her to be found."

"Lividity and rigor say she's been dead for at least three hours," John points out, wanting to be useful after being described as an idiot.

"In low light and with the smoke machines on, it would be very hard even for a seasoned staff member to recognise her as a genuine specimen," Sherlock points out. "I also assume that whoever works in this room wears a mask occluding partially their vision, plus they'd be very preoccupied with performing if there was a constant flow of guests coming and going."

"It's a busy time. When they shut the doors there were queues for all the four sections around the block," Lestrade confirms. "They time the entry so that there's only a handful of people in here at a time."

"When did they open today?" asks Sherlock, then muttering, "Dead for three hours."

"Six hours ago. Extended opening times because of Halloween."

"When is that?"

"Did you delete Halloween like you did Easter?" John asks with a grin. "It's in two days."

"For three hours, people passed through this room, unaware that there was a real murder scene in front of them. And then?"

Sherlock is now following the blood train from the table to the hidden door in the back. Cleverly placed mirrors conceal it from view and create an illusion of there being dozens of meat-cutting slabs.

"A customer used their safeword when dragged onto the table in the front."

"How would the actor know their safeword?" Sherlock asks, snapping off his gloves and returning to the body.

Lestrade spreads his arms. "Maybe they have a radio connection? Or maybe they get a nametag? I didn't ask."

"As always, you've failed to address every pertinent point in the case. Well, go on! Get a staff member in here to explain," Sherlock chides.

"Body's still here," John points out. "Might be too much for them."

"These people work in a haunted house, John. Why would they be upset by a corpse?"

Lestrade and John share a look.

____________

One of the floor managers for _The Red Circle_ fills them in on all the practicalities of running the place. Each section of the horror attraction has a separate theme, entrance and age recommendation.

" _The Bloody Manor_ is sort of Victorian, it's got vampires and it's kind of posh. That's the only one we've classed as suitable for kids over the age of 10. The rest are strictly for over fifteen, and _Red's_ only for adults."

"What are the other themes?" John asks.

Sherlock gives him a dirty look; he has probably decided it's irrelevant to the murder.

" _The_ _Lost Souls Gateway_ is all about ghosts and demons. The experience involves a lot of disorienting effects, it messes with your senses, and we've got some pretty neat, recently updated ghost stuff going on there with mist screens. Then there's the _Heretics’ Dungeon_. It's pretty much what it says on the tin. Torture stuff just like at the London Dungeon, but updated to this century," the manager, a thirtysomething man in an Alice Cooper T-shirt and short hair dyed bright red, explains.

"Why is there a waiver for _The Red Circle_?" Sherlock presses. John recognises the intense energy emanating from him as not nervous, just restless. He's keen to push forward, to test the many hypotheses his brain must be frantically forming.

"It’s a completely personalised experience, unlike anything else in London right now." the manager replies, and there’s a hint of pride in the young man’s voice.

"Meaning what?" Lestrade asks.

"Anyone wanting to do it has to sign up online to reserve a slot. We don't use all the rooms with all the attendees; we pick them based on what things they've told us unnerve them a lot. No point in putting a snake lover in the snake pit."

"The snake…" John frowns, and feels his brows pull down into a V. He shifts his feet uneasily, "… _pit_?"

The manager looks at him as though he was a bit slow. "Yeah. We've got spiders, too, and cockroaches, and scorpions––"

"Never mind that. How does the safeword work?” Sherlock shoots a look at John but he can’t decipher it, as he’s busy trying not to think about a pit full of creepy crawly things.

"They're a part of the questionnaire we send them. Before each group, we have a quick assembly to make sure every performer and staff member knows which word is for which person."

"How many people come through at a time?"

"Five can be in the _Circle_ at the same time, but we try to separate them early on. They get more scared that way."

"How many end up using their safewords?" John asks. The concept is making him uneasy.

"About eight out of ten. It varies a lot at which point."

"That slaughterhouse setup did not seem very intimidating. The participants are primed to be scared by the advertising, I suppose. Must take a certain sort of stooge to want to fall for this." Sherlock's nonplussed gaze travels up a fake gothic pillar draped with artificial spiderwebs.

"It's a bit different, I promise, when the lights and the effects are on and there's someone charging at you with a chainsaw while you're handcuffed to a table."

"What do you do with the people who safeword? Is there some kind of, I don't know, counselling after?" John asks, crossing his arms. "If they've been frightened out of their wits, how do you make sure they get home safe?"

"Oh, they'll be fine," Michael, the manager, waves off his concerns. "They're usually laughing at themselves in like half an hour."

"And before that?" John is staring him down.

"Well, some of them might cry a bit. It gets emotional. Sometimes there's puking. Some sign up who shouldn't, people who have something in their past that triggers them. But we do warn about that sort of thing in our waivers."

"But if they don't know what to expect or how they'll react––" John argues.

Sherlock interrupts him, presumably to steer things back to the murder. "What can you tell me about the victim?"

"Abby B," Michael says, his voice dreamy and now a bit haunted, too.

"Abby Brackenstall," Lestrade confirms.

"We _loved_ her. She's a living legend!" Michael insists. "Gosh, she's–– she was so nice. Like your favourite aunt, really. I think Oscar met her in the States when they both worked at Blackout and invited her here to make sure we were up to par with the best extreme attractions. This was supposed to be her day off, but she said that since she doesn’t know anyone besides us and this was more like a fun holiday for her than work — she was supposed to be here for three months, she only works a part of the year now — she just came in and worked in the vampire section. It’s a lot less intense than the _Circle_. An easy day for her."

"Where does she normally work?"

"She works the _Circle_ and occasionally in the _Bloody Manor_. And she's helped train a lot of the staff. God, I can't believe anyone would… she didn't _know_ anyone! Who would want to kill her? Was it someone random? Did someone just break in and… why would they come here?"

"I can't say at this point whether she was the intended target or a victim of opportunity," Sherlock says. "So, this Oscar knew her best? Where is he?"

"He's the owner. I think he’s still at NSY. They're opening this place tomorrow assuming the forensic team will be done by then, and he is going to be here if you want a w––"

"We need to come back here tomorrow," Sherlock announces. "I need to see this place fully functional."

"I suppose a murder might just make the crowds for this sort of thing longer," John comments bitterly.  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Doing the research required by this story was not only fun but also very jaw-dropping and eye-opening. More on that a bit later into the fic. Let's just say at this point that, by the time we reach the epilogue, I suspect many readers will have needed to recalibrate their ideas about what haunted house -type attractions are in this day and age…
> 
> You may find the occasional ACD canon nod.


	2. Chapter 2

"Useless website," Sherlock scoffs later that evening, and pushes away his laptop to make room for the mug of tea John delivers him. "I don’t want the hyperbolic advertisement version — I need to see how that place runs. We need to interview the owner, to understand the staff flow in those corridors during opening hours. This couldn’t have been some stranger who snuck in; they wouldn't have known when and where to strike.”

John sits opposite him at the table, ready for the deluge of thought-processing he’s sure Sherlock is about to spout. Sherlock ignores his tea, leaning back in his chair with his hands steepled.

“Obviously, the killer must have propped Brackenstall’s room in the slaughterhouse set during one of those safeword assemblies. Assuming other staff members don’t work in several sections of the attraction, she may have been the most convenient victim since she would have been the only one using the connecting corridor between that child-friendly gothic section––”

“ _The Bloody Manor_ ,” John declares in a mock-dramatic voice.

“Yes, thank you, congratulations on picking up at least _one_ case-related fact.”

John gives him a dirty look. “Berk.”

“As I was saying before you rudely interrupted,” Sherlock continues while stirring his tea, “Brackenstall would have been a victim of opportunity, at least. Lestrade's team is well on their way of establishing alibis for the staff, and the owner has been cleared. He was playing tennis with a friend; there's CCTV from the sports arena. Not that I am disappointed — would have been rather a dull culprit."

“Are there security cameras in the Abyss areas to which the guests have access?” John asks.

“Not in the staff areas or in the _Red Circle_ because there, customers are never without constant supervision. Makes it an attractive place for presenting the body.”

“You think it was meant to be found, then? Why not put it somewhere even more visible?”

“Aside from the security camera problem, I should think it is because while the killer intended the body to be found, they did not necessarily want that to happen immediately.”

“To allow them to escape?”

“Yes and no. They couldn’t know when or if someone would even safeword in that room. It’s practically tame compared to some of the other stunts.”

"Yeah, no," John confirms. "Cockroaches and all. We had scorpions the size of tea plates in Afghanistan, ones called Deathstalkers. That's what I'd list as my number one nightmare."

"Not an enemy ambush or bleeding out from a gunshot wound? I would’ve thought those would be—"

John inhales sharply, his chin tipping up in a sudden blaze of anger. "Jesus, Sherlock," he grunts quietly under his breath.

There is some blinking, then a brittle sort of naked embarrassment on Sherlock's features. "I'm… I–– a bit not good?"

John doesn't answer. His fingers clench involuntarily into a fist.

"I'm sorry," Sherlock says. "You know I just… that I don't always anticipate the reactions I cause."

He sounds very genuine. He always is, with John. John nods once, exhales. He feels some of the adrenaline drain. "Yeah, alright, yeah… it’s— you can’t just drag stuff like that out. It's like yanking someone's legs out from under them."

"I don't follow."

"Right. ‘Course not. Okay. What I mean is that it's very sudden and if you want to talk about something that's traumatising for a person, you have to ease into it. A bit like foreplay."

"Foreplay for… discussing your shoulder injury?" Sherlock looks so perplexed that John worries he might sprain something.

"You just need to ease into it, to ask the other person if it's something they're okay with discussing."

"I see."

John thinks that maybe he doesn't, but at least he's taking John's word for it. He sits back down, musing aloud. "I wonder if that waiver and the pre-screening and the safeword are just more of the gimmick, something which they use to build anticipation. I mean, obviously someone who's been the victim of a violent crime wouldn't sign up for that sort of thing, and people who go know it's fake, that they won't really be killed with a chainsaw, so what's the worst that could happen?" The truth is that John doesn't want to believe that people would pay money to be truly terrorised out of their wits. It just doesn't seem plausible.

"People phobic of spiders having to encounter one might be classed as very intense."

"Are people somehow perversely attracted to anything that's dangerous or frightening? This isn't what haunted houses and carnivals and fun houses were like when I was little."

"I've never been to one."

"You've never been to what?"

"A carnival. Or a fun house. Or a haunted attraction."

"Really? We went to Blackpool once with Mum, she had a new job, so she took us on a day trip. The horror house there was not very scary. Harry laughed through the whole thing."

"Our parents took us to an amusement park once. They quickly realised their mistake. Mycroft was born with the soul of a fifty-year old government bureaucrat; fun was never in his vocabulary. I found the whole experience very noisy, disconcerting and unpleasant. There were many other children around, which alone would have put off both of us."

"There's a point, I think, where a lot of people just lose that ability for immersion. That it all gets a bit cringey, maybe, seeing those actors try so hard?"

"Did you find that slaughterhouse setting frightening?"

"No. In bad taste, if anything."

"I am rather curious to see how they manage the whole thing. There has got to be quite a lot of psychology involved. London Abyss boasts having a sociologist in their payroll."

"To work out how to best scare people?"

"I suppose. Perhaps also to analyse what themes would be on point for the future. Horror is so rife with cliche that they must need all the help they can get to come up with something novel."

"I didn't quite get what _The Red Circle_ even means. I get the vampire mansion theme, and the weird dimensional… whatever, and the medieval torture, but how do they keep the theme together, if they personalise which rooms you go through?"

Sherlock grabs his laptop and arranges it onto his lap. "Tomorrow, we'll find out."

"What are you doing?" John asks when Sherlock begins typing fast.

"Filling out their pre-screening questionnaire."

"Let me see that." John puts his tea on the brass side table and goes to stand behind Sherlock's chair so he can peer over his shoulder.

" _'This attraction is not suitable for claustrophobic or pregnant individuals or those with photosensitive epilepsy,_ " John reads out loud. " _'Depending on your personalised experience, this tour may involve rough physical contact, extreme gore, simulated homicide, graphic sexual content, liquids, confined spaces or restraints_. _'_ "

"It appears we only scratched the surface with that one room."

"Why would anyone want to see stuff like that? Why do _you_ need to see that?"

"It was obvious from today's interview alone that this is a close-knit community of creative minds and performers. In order to understand the killer's choice of location and the theatrical presentation of the body, I must understand the stage he's chosen as a whole."

"And admit it, you're curious."

Sherlock raises a sardonic brow. "I can't be frightened by such nonsense, John. By definition, it's fake. Real, traumatic experiences do not come with pre-booked time slots and waivers. You can fill yours out once I'm done." Sherlock looks over his shoulder indignantly as if to signal that John should make himself scarce and stop spying on what he's writing.

"Nope. I'm not doing it. I'm pretty sure you can catch the killer without having to be exposed to _simulated homicide and graphic sexual content_."

"I'll have Lestrade go through it, then."

"Isn't there a waiting list?"

"This is a murder investigation, John, one requiring a swift conclusion. I'm sure the owner can find it in his heart to pencil us in."

____________

Though it's a Sunday — not a day John would associate with amusement parks and horror house visits — the front of Abyss London is packed, and the queues Lestrade had described are now snaking all the way to Rawstone Walk, the route from the closest Underground station to the attraction in the heart of Upton. The sun is setting, and impressive light effects have turned the former fish canning factory front into an entryway to an artificial underworld. Sherlock and Lestrade's reservation to enter the _Red Circle_ are in an hour; Sherlock had declared wanting to speak with the owner first.

They'd spent the afternoon at Barts reviewing the autopsy results. Instead of a holiday-making Molly, their host had been an older pathologist by the name of Morris. He'd confirmed what Sherlock had deduced: that the cause of death was ligature strangulation, and that the neck wound had been done post-mortem, most likely while the body was in a sitting position. There were no other injuries and no signs of narcotics, at least according to the results already in.

"Hardly surprising, since she was working, and none of the other employees have said anything pointing to substance abuse," Sherlock had dismissed.

Morris agreed that the only defensive wounds were the ones on her fingers; she must have managed to shoved them under the ligature, then when the pain became too intense pulled them out and perhaps tried to push the assailant away, but judging by how the ligature marks rose higher in the neck, the killer had likely grabbed her from behind, strangling her and then cutting her neck once she was dead and slumped to the floor. The large blood stain discovered in the back corridor was consistent with this theory. No splatters — a heart that no longer beats produces no blood pressure and thus no spurts.

"The corridor was so narrow that it must've saved them some time to just sit her down instead of arranging her into lying down, and perhaps the killer dragged her by the ligature into position on the set. Would have been faster to just carry her, but that would have stained the killer's clothes. Or, perhaps they didn't have the strength to pick her up. I need more data."

"But why sever the neck in the first place?" Morris asked. "If they wanted to conceal a murder, why make a mess by draining the blood?

"To make a statement," Sherlock had declared, " _and_ to disguise the body enough that it could be mistaken for a slaughterhouse prop."

That had made John wonder whether this was just a one-off, or if they were dealing with a killer who simply found a commercial horror house a convenient setting for their first homicide. Will there be more, and where will they dump the body then?

He'd voiced these questions to Sherlock in the cab.

"This is someone who knows the premises. If they were a fledgeling serial killer, they would have chosen something utterly unconnected to their own lives as a dumping ground, or at least gone somewhere without a personal connection. Judging by the reviews of London's older haunted attractions, they could use with a bit of livening up."

"Livening up _with a dead body_?" John had shaken his head, laughing.

Lestrade leads them through the crowds into the foyer for the _Bloody Manor_ ; that is where the owner has agreed to meet them. A few disgruntled patrons in the queues give them the stink eye, assuming they're jumping the queue. John is, at first, confounded why Lestrade doesn't just flash his badge, but then realises that the Met probably wants to keep things under wraps until an official press release is created. Maybe they even want to wait until the whole thing is solved to prevent spooking the suspect.

No expense has been spared in decorating the final stretch of the waiting area for this section of the attraction. Violet and burgundy velvet drapes line the walls, occasionally interrupted by huge portraits with roving eyes that have been hung up high in angles which make them seem as though they're tilting forward, ready to fall. John notices that, at certain angles, the faces in those paintings transform into skulls, likely due to a holographic effect imbedded in the images. The colour palette is lush and warm, but subtly macabre. As they approach the heavy, ornate double doors which mark the start of the tour, the light becomes redder, the shadows longer, and the background music more dissonant. It’s an impressive, meticulously crafted effect. 

A forty-something man in a red plaid kilt and a frilly black shirt approaches them. He has an expensive-looking watch and sombre expression — and a smidgen of red lipstick? John wonders.

Hands are shaken, and Oscar Leverton then leads the way to his office on the second floor. The elevator is hidden behind a panel decorated with skeleton-themed woodcuttings.

"The craftsmanship is impressive," Sherlock comments coldly. "Must have cost a fortune."

"It’s a dog-eat-dog world. I like to stay ahead of the competition," Leverton replies. "Compared to the States, the industry is pretty much in its infancy here, but I’m not interested in being left behind."

John knows he has a solid alibi for the murder, and his grief seems genuine to John when he speaks again: “Sorry to hear about your employee, Mr Leverton,” he offers.

Oscar nods and when he speaks next, his voice is hollow. "Thank you. I’m still finding it hard to believe. I just got off the phone with Abby’s brother. I don't know what I'll do without her. She was a pillar of this place even though her contract was supposed to be limited."

"Surely, there are loads of unemployed local actresses you could hire to take over her duties?“ Sherlock suggests disinterestedly, his gaze roaming the office.

Leverton looks at him dismissively, his voice steady once again. "Not just anyone is ready for this level of intense engagement with the audience. It's a personal relationship which you create with them in a manner of seconds, being a haunter. It's a sophisticated art form that requires the engagement of all senses. There's no school where one can learn how to provide such an in-depth experience as the kind that we offer here. This requires a high level of mostly on-the-job training, for everything from the tech to the performers, the makeup and costumes, to the specific formula needed to make realistic demon goo."

"So, that's why you felt the need to hire someone like Brackenstall," Sherlock concludes.

"She's the best in the business. Trained most of the current team here."

"What _does_ it require, then, to enjoy scaring people?" Sherlock asks. "It's obviously a power play. Not everyone would enjoy that."

"Power play? God, you make it sound like we’re running some cheap backyard thing. It’s nothing so negative, Mister Holmes. My staff appreciate the immediate feedback that they receive from grateful and excited attendees. This one time, we had an audience member chained to the wall, and when it was time for the demon to bust out of a wall, she passed out and peed herself." Leverton chuckles a bit. "Perfect feedback. But it's less about the special effects than it is about the performances. If you put me in a room with a box cutter, a rope and a chair, I promise you you’ll get your money’s worth if a scary story if what you want. Horror is fantasy and escapism; so many classic modern horror films were made during the Cold War and when the middle classes were struggling with depression in the nineties; people needed an escape and something concrete to be scared of instead of financial ruin. Decades before those the Japanese created the early monster horror genre as a cultural reaction to the threat of nuclear war."

"Have you faced any opposition from religious groups for the Abyss?" Sherlock asks, walking toward a glass case in the far corner of the office.

Leverton huffs. "The best haunters in the States get death threats and protesters — it's almost a sign that you're doing something right. Mind you, we've had very little of that here. As for religious groups, yeah, they don't like anything that they can easily label as satanism, but in fact, the chain of haunted attractions back in the day which actually set a lot of the industry standards were run by a Christian organisation. It was their way of trying to get young people more involved with the church through building those Halloween events. And, there's even lots of what are known as _hell houses_ in the industry; they're run by religious groups and warn about the dangers of veering from the Christian path,"

Leverton laughs, obvious that he finds the concept amusing. "Christian iconography has given everyone who works in the business a lot of good stuff to work with, of course."

"You said there's no training for what you do. How _did_ you end up running this, then?" John asks.

Sherlock steps to the side of the glass case and John gets a glimpse of what looks like shrunken heads in a glass case. He wonders if they're real.

"If I was American, I would have started off as a home haunter. Bum luck being born a Brit. Loved all those old horror movies and theme parks, learned about modern haunted attractions when I was an event manager for Thorpe Park. Wanted to learn more, and finally got hired by Blackout."

"Blackout?" Sherlock asks.

"Industry pioneers in more extreme haunted attractions."

"You mean like the _Red Circle_?" Sherlock asks. "Waivers and safewords?"

"Well, yes, though that's still… Yeah," he finally concludes, oddly reluctant. "I met Abby at Blackout and got the idea that I could open the first modern haunted attraction in the UK. There's very little serious competition here, still. Most of what's here is very outdated tech, relying more on nostalgia than actually making people scared. Horror changes with the times, and people just want more out of their experience these days. The virtual reality business is booming, and shops sell Hollywood-grade special effects tech for home use. An animatronic bat and an actor in a fake blood -splattered clown costume standing next to a signpost to the giftshop just isn’t going to cut it anymore. All the cutting-edge haunted attractions employ expert researchers to really tap into people’s psyche. We have a sociologist on staff here."

"Using their hard-earned degrees to terrorise people," John mutters.

"Who are the other employees? What are their backgrounds? I'll have to see their files," Sherlock declares.

"Yeah, sure," Leverton says, looking a bit annoyed at the abrupt topic change. "They’re mostly locals, with the exception of the few I dragged with me from the States. We hire some ex-cons — with background checks, of course. Kids from bad backgrounds, a bit like youth theatre programs do."

"Ex-cons and delinquents. Sounds like a formula for success. What if one of them gets a bit too addicted to scaring people?"

"We have rules. And debriefings for the _Red Circle_ staff after each workday. A haunter needs a certain degree of humanity, I think — how else are you going to recognise where the line is for the most impact?"

"Most impact but no permanent damage?" John asks pointedly. The answer he gets from Leverton is just an unimpressed glance.

John, however, isn't done with the topic. "So, the staff in the _Red Circle_ actually touch the guests? What are the guests allowed to do to them, then?" he asks.

"Nothing. Strict no-touching policy, but of course sometimes you can't predict what someone's fight-or-flight reflex looks like. Our performers occasionally get punched or knocked down, but there's great skateboard and BMX armour available and we have really good occupational health services."

John shakes his head. 

"We're dedicated; it's a community, and to transfer that culture here, you need the real legends and experts to trailblaze the way. The UK's so far behind the States. Thankfully, that also means that audience expectations are lower. Abby believed, like some others, that the traditional, more accessible, vintage-style places which evoke some childhood nostalgia will also survive and not just those places which modernise the effects, but I'm not so sure.“

“So, if you think you have to keep upping the ante, what’s next? When is it enough? Or too much?" Sherlock asks.

Leverton spreads his arms. "The sky's the limit. As special effects and audience tastes evolve, so do we. The line between entertainment and real terror gets thinner, and that's the market we want to tap into. Halloween is one of the fastest-growing industries in the US. The more the world goes to shit, the more people want a controlled sense of fear they can conquer. I think it'll be the same in the UK, and I plan to be at the forefront of that."

John thinks about how horror movies which used to be rated only for adults would not even be banned from schoolchildren, now. Films such as the Exorcist and Birds would be considered quite tame in the era of _Saw_ , _Paranormal Activity_ , and the like. Though John is not really a fan of the genre, those two films he has seen on dates. There's something about a good horror flick which seems to break the ice nicely on a first date, leading to John's companion clinging to his arm in the dark. But, that's just a bit of safe fun — the monsters aren't going to leap out from the screen and abuse the audience. _How far can people like Leverton go with their craft?_ he wonders. He also wonders if Sherlock could watch horror films without picking apart their lack of realism and logic. John certainly can't watch Bond films at home without being subjected to a constant barrage of scathing commentary. The last time he'd eventually shoved one of Mrs Hudson's flapjacks into Sherlock's mouth to shut him up.

"The personnel files, if you please, Mr Leverton," Sherlock commands.

The manager's hesitant eyes shift to Lestrade, who leans back in his chair, arms crossed. "We already have the search warrant," he comments. "it would save us both a lot of hassle if we received them now."

The manager goes to fetch the files.

After leafing through them, Sherlock asks him a series of more-or-less logical questions about the staff. He also wanders around the office, peering more closely into the glass case John had been curious about. "They're real," he concludes, sounding impressed. "Unlike what is on offer in the _Red Circle_."

"What constitutes real?" Leverton asks the room. "If the fear is real, even for a second, does it matter if the danger was not? But, don't take my word for it. I believe we only have a few minutes until your booked slots. Shall we?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, we begin to learn about how far modern haunted attractions go in their offerings geared towards larger audiences. The description John read out loud of The Red Circle is a composite of descriptions of several real attractions in the US, and service providers really do employ modern sociology and psychology in designing their attractions. Much of what Leverton says is based on a documentary called _Haunters — The Art of The Scare_ (2017), and the character of Abby Brackenstall is based on Shar Mayer, a legendary haunted attraction actress (still very much alive). And yup, Hell Houses are real, too, and _Blackout_ really was among the industry pioneers to offer a rather extreme immersive horror tour for select customers. We've still only scratched the surface of what is on offer for _niche_ audiences looking for something truly extreme…
> 
> I love a good horror film, but prefer those of the ghosts and vampires variety. I’d never set foot in one of these more extreme haunted attractions because frankly, I’m a big wimp who frequently turns into jelly because of all the strange noises created by our 100-year old house. The sociology of horror as an entertainment genre has long fascinated me, and that’s probably what birthed this story.


	3. Chapter 3

Still adamant he wants nothing to do with an offering of _personalised simulated homicide_ , John decides to go through the much tamer sounding _Bloody Manor_ while Sherlock and Lestrade brave the _Red Circle_. John finds it reassuring to know that even if the performers might direct some attention at him, they can't touch him or throw or pour anything on him. Sherlock had deposited his Belstaff in a locker provided to prevent it from getting dirty, but John still wonders how big a dry-cleaning bill will await his fancy dress shirt and his bespoke trousers after this. It's ridiculous — people paying good money to get doused with fake blood and being spooked.

Wandering through the maze of rooms, deep in thought, John finds himself pleasantly surprised by the _Bloody Manor_. The actors playing familiar creatures from fairy tales and horror lore do a good job in projecting detached eeriness and the ghost effects in the darker areas are particularly impressive. He even finds himself hastening his steps as a decapitated bride chases him down a misty corridor. The apparition is seamlessly replaced by an actress as he arrives in a large hall decorated like a palace ballroom. A group of actors there are staging a spectral ball, and John wonders how the effect of what look like very concretely fleshy humans gliding through furniture is created. He's not surprised there is an age recommendation of ten for this section. While not enough to traumatise any adult, as a child he would have probably been equal amounts scared and exhilarated by the offerings.

The thing is, this is quite enough for him. He's not out of his comfort zone, not being physically harassed or put on the spot. It's like walking through a dream he knows will end. Nothing about any of the themes is distasteful and the gore is kept to a minimum. John wonders how his companions are faring. The average time for going through the Manor had been about an hour while the _Red Circle_ was listed as roughly the same, though the admission price is three times as much.

Once back outside, blinking even in the streetlights after traversing through the final, black tunnel area of the attraction, John looks for the others. Soon enough, he spots Lestrade waving his hand amidst the crowds which are only increasing in size.

"Well, how was it?" John asks the DI.

"Bloody intense. They know their stuff, John."

John raises a sly brow. "But you didn't need your safeword, I assume?"

Lestrade chuckles. "Nah, mate. Heard some pretty blood-curdling screams from the other rooms, though. Depends on whether your job requires you to keep your wits about you, I think. I can't just start panicking if some idiot comes at me with a mask on their head swinging an axe, can I? I suppose it would be the same for you; doctor and army man and all, can't get squeamish or scared very easily."

John still wouldn't want to experience anything that would remind him of the ambush which had cost him a healthy shoulder, especially not pay for such an experience at a fake haunted house. "Did you go through the slaughterhouse room?"

"No, not even sure if it's operational again yet. I did get the snake pit, though, and that was a bit… Didn't bother really telling them anything personal, just put some random nonsense on that form."

"Didn't share your worst fears, then?"

"Why the hell would anyone tell them such things?"

"Apparently people _want_ to get terrorised good and proper at these places, or they're someone who thinks that they're above it all. Speaking of which, have you seen Sherlock?"

Lestrade's expression is strange — a mixture of smug and exasperated. "He's out back." He cocks his head towards the corner of the building.

"Doing what?"

Lestrade lets out a hearty chuckle. "Go ask him, though he won't like that one bit."

Sure enough, John finds his flatmate in an alley next to a skip, smoking one cigarette and trying to light another with very shaky fingers. His fringe curls look a bit messy and wet, and John wonders if he's been doused with something or if it's nervous sweat. He's pale and looks, for lack of a better word, _haunted_.

"Mister Balls here safeworded out after ten minutes, the owner said. Really did a number on him," Lestrade says, and Sherlock gives him a look that would petrify an elephant.

John isn't amused. He's seen Sherlock like this only once, and that was after they'd both been doused with a hallucinogen and frightened half to death. With Sherlock being… well, Sherlock, with his… sensory issues and such, the effects had been particularly devastating on him.

"You okay?" John asks.

"I have to applaud their skills," Sherlock admits with a voice that wavers only a little bit. "I certainly got what I asked for, being _idiotic enough_ to put something truthful on that bloody form."

"What did they…" John starts, then leans down to pick up the lighter Sherlock has just dropped. "You _have_ a cigarette, you berk, you don't need another."

"Looks like a stiff drink would be better," Lestrade suggests with a chuckle.

Clearly embarrassed, upset and tired of such attention, Sherlock strides off towards the front of the building again. "There's someone I need to speak with," he declares.

John would bet money on that being just an excuse, but he hurries after the tall form with the flappy coattails. Instead of entering the premises again, Sherlock heads to the back of the queue. There, a young woman holding a picket sign is shouting while two security guards with London Abyss embroidered on their backs are making sure she and the small straggle of other protesters do not get any closer to the entrance.

Sherlock heads to speak to the woman; John lingers back to survey the scene until Sherlock beckons him closer just as Lestrade catches up with them.

"This is Rebecca Reid," Sherlock introduces. "And she's got a story for us."

____________

They are soon tucked safely into an alcove in a Patisserie Valerie with their beverages. Sherlock had paid for the young woman's purchase — a large latte. Lestrade had covered his and John's teas.

"Why are you protesting the Abyss, then?" Lestrade asks, glancing at his watch restlessly.

John thinks the DI should have learned by now that Sherlock rarely wastes time on unnecessary interviews. Something about this woman must have really piqued his interest.

"That place isn't what the website says or anything like the way Oscar describes it."

"Oscar? You’re on a first-name basis?"

"I _worked_ there."

"Resigned or booted out?"

 _Sherlock's famous diplomacy at work_ , John thinks to himself.

"I left. But I left even before Laurie died."

"And Laurie is…?" Lestrade prompts.

"My best friend. She encouraged me to apply. She was on the waiting list for _Beyond_ at that point. Maybe she thought I could help her get a spot. There were six thousand people on that list before the Abyss even opened."

Rebecca seems so anxiously eager to tell her story that she seems to have launched into the middle of it without remembering to offer any of the necessary background information.

"You're going to have to back up a bit," Sherlock says. " _Beyond_? Is that a prior name for one of the Abyss sections?"

"It's the fifth one. And very much operational."

"There are only four," Sherlock declares snootily.

"That's what people who don't move in the right circles think. They don't put it on the regular website, but it's still on. Every month, in fact."

"And what would these right circles be?"

"People who want more than just your regular haunted house experience."

"We know about the _Red Circle_ ," John says. "About the waivers and the safewords. We've been in there today to see what it entails."

Rebecca looks at him with superior disdain. "You have no fucking idea, mate."

"Then, by all mean, _enlighten us_ ," Lestrade comments pointedly. "We're not mind readers."

"The _Red Circle_ is, I don't know, I guess pretty serious stuff, but there is a whole other level to this. Hardcore immersive haunted attractions. Small groups or solo experiences. Stuff referred to as _victim experiences_."

Rebecca glances around at their still sceptical expressions and digs out her phone. "I'll show you. There’s this website, _Haunting,_ which indexes all levels of ‘interactive horror experiences’ from murder mystery dinners for old ladies to haunted houses to the most extreme, immersive experiences. In many ways, they're the _antithesis_ to what is usually marketed as a haunted house. Very few of the more extreme experiences actually connect to the supernatural in any way. Some of them have chosen satanism or other horror topics as their themes, but the worst ones are not about the external things you see — they're about what can be created inside your head."

"Oscar said that people keep looking for increasingly extreme experiences, that horror changes with the ages," says John.

Rebecca's dark brown eyes fix on him. There's an intensity to the young woman that John finds formidable. "And in which direction do you think the business of these extreme experiences evolved after 9/11? After Guantanamo? After the _Saw_ movies?"

She opens a page detailing something on offer in Las Vegas called the _Freakling Brothers Victim Experience_ and starts reading out loud. " _'Individual experience, full physical contact, electricity, drowning and suffocation. Extreme simulated death scenarios. Only 30 % don't use the safeword.'_ "

Sherlock snatches the phone from her and continues reading out loud, "' _The most realistic, traumatic, and horrifying test of psychological fortitude currently being offered in the United States. You're not the voyeur; you're the victim',_ " he concludes in a morbidly triumphant tone.

John hopes it's because he thinks this is helping them forward in the case, not because he thinks what they're hearing is in any way good and exciting.

Sherlock's lip is curling up. " _Beyond_ is a similar tour, then, offered by the Abyss, and advertised only to the initiated?" His question sounds rhetorical.

"Ten fucking points out of ten. They pretend to be really careful about the selection process, but people can lie however much they want. They sign away their human rights, and nobody takes any responsibility for the consequences. My best friend killed herself because of what they did to her. They did what she _paid_ them to do, what she signed up for."

"You're saying she committed suicide because of what they did to her… with her permission?" Lestrade asks, sounding confused. "You have evidence that's what made her do such a thing?"

"I've kept all our emails, text messages. It's all there, how she couldn't get past what happened. They do things to you which would be illegal outside of those tours. How can you sign away your right not to be bled, beaten, drowned, electrocuted?"

"They give you one chance to use your safeword. After that, you endure the remaining four hours."

"Four–– _four hours_?!" The words are out of John's mouth before he's even aware of them. His walk through the Bloody Manor had been long enough, and he had been left alone by the performers.

"How bad can those tours be?" Lestrade asks.

"See for yourself," Rebecca says and snatches her phone back from Sherlock. "Just imagine the effect of this shit on someone with domestic violence and sexual abuse in their family history which they didn't disclose when applying to this, and you get why people like Laurie don't just walk away after."

She clicks on a ten-minute YouTube video titled ‘ _Inside McKamey Manor_ ’. John assumes it's one of these places about which Rebecca has been explaining about. The accents in the footage are American.

When the video ends two minutes later, John's palm has slipped in front of his mouth, Lestrade's eyes are blazing with determined anger and even Sherlock looks a bit queasy. After all, they have just watched a young woman in a straitjacket locked into a nearly entirely submerged cage, people locked into cold storage units in just their underwear, blindfolded attendees being force-fed live cockroaches and their own vomit. Towards the end of the video, one participant is proudly presenting her flogging welts, massive bruises on her legs and two broken fingers.

The DI is the first to voice what they're all thinking: "This can't be legal. Not even in the States."

Sherlock rolls his eyes. "I’d assume _you_ to be the expert on that."

"Most of the US service providers don't even hide what they're doing because it's so hard to prosecute them; people who sign the forty-page waivers don't often complain afterwards even though many of them regret going, because they anticipate the reaction — people would just blame them for being stupid. UK legislation is stricter, so Oscar's circumventing it by keeping things quiet. Nobody here knows about this shit yet, so it's completely under the radar. Not that even protests, or legal action have shut down the worst ones in the US. Here, I think there could be more control, but since there's no evidence, the police can't do shit. No offence," Rebecca says to Lestrade.

"How do people sign up for this?" Sherlock asks.

"You hear about it from other hobbyists. They direct you to contact Oscar, who adds you to a hidden Facebook community. Through there, if you're lucky, you might get a spot. Oscar requires just the waiver but some of these places want to see a psych eval and a medical statement."

"Not even a psych eval can guarantee how someone would behave when exposed to… _that_ ," John says, disgusted. "You can't predict what traumatises a person. How's that even different from actual torture? They're being _waterboarded_!"

"The people organising these say that it’s not the same because you signed up for it. You know they can't kill you even if you signed the waiver."

"Gaslighting," Sherlock says with a nod. "Likely very effective in preventing complaints, especially if it's largely internalised."

"People blame themselves and only talk to others who regret their choices, assuming they ever find any. They want you to be involved afterwards, pretend it's some community of brave survivors when in reality, they're just trying to normalise the whole thing."

"Perpetuated Stockholm syndrome," Sherlock confirms. "Doubly effective."

"Oscar says that they just want you to reach the point where you start doubting your survival, no further, but isn't that enough if you use people's personal trauma to get to that point. And that's assuming they actually let you safeword out," Rebecca fumes. "Some places will only give you one opportunity to use it and some don't even have a safeword."

"You said you resigned. Did you work for this… extreme section of the business, then?" Sherlock asks.

"No. I resigned when I found out what really does go down in it from some of the staff who worked both a regular attraction job and that thing. Oscar mostly hired people for it who don't work at the regular Abyss. Keeps the rumours to a minimum."

"Why? Why risk Abyss' reputation and do this stuff?" Lestrade asks, still clearly taken aback by what he's learned.

"Because for people in this business, reputation is everything. Oscar wants to be on top of the game, and that means notoriety. Reputation is what brings people to you in the haunting business because it's what brings the social media buzz. I heard someone got killed yesterday. That's why you're here, isn't it? You're Sherlock Holmes, here with a copper."

"We haven't publicised that fact," Lestrade says. "There's been nothing in the papers."

"Why do you think there's so many people here? Rumours and photos of a body being hauled out yesterday are all over Twitter and Instagram."

"Fuck," Lestrade mutters.

"Don't act so surprised, old man. You think the only source of the news these days is some officially designated police PR lady? Get real."

"Has anyone else left because of this? You said your friend died after you resigned," John points out.

"I just wanted to get the hell out of there. Wanted nothing to do with it. I didn't think I could get Oscar to understand that you can't just let people do this and blame them. After Laurie died I realised there needs to be someone who says enough, this is going too far, because that argument's not going to come from the inside, and the authorities won't do anything if they don't know about it. You can't excuse shit just by saying that people want it."

"Armin Meiwes," Sherlock says.

"The what now?" John asks.

" _Armin Meiwes_ ," Sherlock insists, shooting a disappointed look in John’s direction, "also known as the _Rotenburg Cannibal_. He posted a message on a cannibalistic fetish online forum looking for a volunteer to be killed, then consumed. A man by the name of Bernd Brandes was among those who responded, and he was the only one who didn't back out. They made a videotape together proving that the killing would be consensual. Together, they first cut off Brandes' penis and seasoned and fried it. Apparently, it got too burnt to consume, so they fed it to Meiwes' dog. After killing Brandes and using him for food, Meiwes was only arrested after he posted a new advertisement, looking for new victims."

"But he _was_ convicted of murder, wasn't he? You can't just consent to someone killing you!"

"Yes, though the conviction was for manslaughter, not murder," Sherlock replies. "Curiously, he has since become a vegetarian."

"So, there _is_ a precedent, at least in Germany, that consent doesn't mean you can break the law and hurt people," Lestrade points out. "If someone ends up in the hospital because of these tours, it should be possible to prosecute as battery even if they consented to it.

Sherlock has naturally some more morbid information to share. "There's at least British legislation which criminalises injuries inflicted during sadomasochistic sex even when the victim has expressed consent. Drove the subculture nearly underground when a serial killer was hunting among them — nobody wanted to talk to the police and help them find the killer because they feared litigation for their own sex lives," Sherlock muses.

"Christ," John says. "I had no idea about any of this. What I thought of as a haunted house have nothing to do with… _that_." He glares at Rebecca's phone on the table.

The woman certainly has a bone to pick with the Abyss, but if she was the murderer, would she be this vocal about it to the investigating police team? Could be a tactic of hiding in plain sight? _She seems confident — cocky, even. Maybe she thinks she's got away with it?_ He wonders what Sherlock makes of her.

"How many at Abyss know about these limited tours? How many have expressed disapproval?" Sherlock asks.

"I don't know," Rebecca replies. "Most people just move on after resigning because they never planned the Abyss as a life career, anyway. I don't know how many have quit because of the limited tours. I can give you the names of people I know who have left, but as far as I know, I'm the only one trying to stop this. The rest just want their paychecks."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the reality of where the immersive horror business is going. Here is the _actual_ website, [Haunting.net](https://www.haunting.net/extreme-haunts/); the link takes you directly to their immersive extreme experiences section. Now you also know where this story gets its title.
> 
> I wish I had invented what goes on at McKamey Manor for the purposes of this story. The descriptions of events in the video John, Sherlock and Lestrade view in this chapter are descriptions of things I've seen in videos of that attraction while researching this story. Plenty available on Youtube, and the owner is interviewed in the documentary " _Haunters — The Art of The Scare_ " and in an episode of New Zealand -made documentary series Dark Tourist; journalist David Farrier nods out within minutes of the start of a McKamey Manor tour. Youtuber Gabss has [talked extensively about her experience in the attraction](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZF2a9bPO6U), and her story was a heavy influence on how Rebecca describes the reasons why people who've gone through such a thing don't make complaints afterwards.
> 
> The serial killer, the search for which Sherlock was describing, was Colin Ireland; his hunting ground was London's gay BDSM scene and the legislation described which had been introduced fairly recently before the murders has been speculated to have made the police's investigation an even bigger challenge. The story of Armin Meiwes, as recounted by Sherlock, is also accurate. Arthur Conan Doyle has written something along the lines that there is no room for fiction in medicine for the facts will always be strange enough on their own. That statement seems to apply well to commercial horror experiences and serial killers, too.


	4. Chapter 4

Late that night, John kicks off his shoes, computer on his lap, and lifts his sock-clad feet onto the empty seat of Sherlock's chair. "I just don't get why fear would be entertaining," he starts, directing his words to Sherlock who is hunched over his own laptop by the desk. "I mean, I have watched horror films, but this is just on a whole other level. What she said about people wanting to go to haunted houses more when bad things happen in the world is just… it doesn’t make sense to me. That seems like the opposite of what I’d want."

"You have your idiotic Bond films, and the worse your locum shift at some A&E department is, the likelier you are to watch them. How are action films not just violence stylised to be entertaining?"

"Movies are fiction whereas these people are inserting themselves in the mix! I don't think these people are really understanding what they're getting into. You can't just sign away your human rights!"

"People are legally entitled to make idiotic decisions all the time. Declining life-saving medical treatment is a good example."

"It's not really the same as giving someone the permission to fake-rape and waterboard you! Anyone who's really experienced anything violent and traumatising wouldn't ever want to be exposed to anything like that again."

"Says the man invalided home from a war who answered _'god, yes_ ' to my enquiry whether he'd want more murder and mayhem in his life. Don't pretend you enjoy the Work solely because it's a chance to deliver some justice at the end. I know you better than that."

John grits his teeth, remembering Mycroft's statement about him missing the war. He doesn't agree in all respects — who the hell would _miss_ such a thing as a whole? — but there are aspects of it he is still nostalgic about, things he longs for. Things being with Sherlock has given back to him.

He crosses his arms. " _I_ don't want to be hurt, and I don't want to watch that happen to anyone, let alone abuse other people. They say that they screen the actors, but what sort of a person does it take to enjoy that sort of thing, scaring and traumatising others? Are there really that many sociopaths available for these things?"

It seems amusing, now, that Sherlock would try to repel idiots by claiming he is one. Every day they've known each other has provided John with plenty of evidence that Sherlock just might feel things _more_ than the average person, and he has a lot of compassion for others.

"Could be the very immediate and intense connection to their audience. Plenty of high-profile actors return to theatre because they miss that," Sherlock replies.

"There's still physical distance between the actors on the stage and the audience in their seats, though. Neither will suddenly leap out and try to strangle someone in the third row."

"I agree with you, John, in that these attractions cross the line between entertainment and harm. What fascinates me is where, precisely, that line goes. Judging by online comments, some people come out relatively psychologically unscathed, while some have gone so far as taking their own lives."

"Do you believe it could have been the reason Rebecca's friend committed suicide?"

"Not the only reason, but there are plenty of customer accounts online from US attractions stating those experiences triggered things they didn't expect. If someone chooses to undergo an extreme immersive tour without realising the potential consequences…"

"…it's possible," John says. "Especially if they don't get the help they need afterwards. And they're sure as hell not getting it from these tour operators."

It seems so silly to call these things 'tours', but there doesn't seem to be a better word. To John, a tour sounds like tourists being herded into a bus in Malaga. "It's impossible to predict how a person will behave under stress, or how much they can endure. That's why medically assessing even things such as someone's mental eligibility for a driver's licence or a firearm licence often feels more like an art form than an exact science."

"I think Leverton is right in that not a lot of people are familiar with this subculture, and legislation is lagging behind. Then again, punching someone's lights out is legal as long as it's done in a boxing ring."

"In sports, you know precisely what you're getting into. A part of these victim experiences, or whatever nonsense name they want to give them, is that you _don't_ know what to expect," John points out.

"As I said, I don't disagree with you. I need more data, and we need to poke the hornet's nest. We need to tell Leverton that we have a volunteer to do _Beyond_." His fingers begin dancing on the phone keys. "Lestrade can pretend to threaten him with a warrant if he tries to decline."

John scoffs. "Good luck with that. How would they even get a warrant for a _performance_?"

Sherlock looks thoughtful for a moment, tapping his fingertips on the scratched table surface. "Can't be you. PTSD would instantly disqualify you as a candidate. It's all over your blog even if you never said it out loud. Oscar would know I'm bluffing if I offered you as our lamb to slaughter."

John is taken aback by the mention of his PTSD again, though this time it is in a much more respectful context. He doesn't like talking about it and can't decide if Sherlock mentioning it in such a blase manner is an insult or a good way of normalising it between them. He realises that Sherlock isn't volunteering himself as a guinea pig for this, either. Safewording out of the _Red Circle_ would make his candidacy for a more extreme tour easy to dismiss, too.

"Needs to be Lestrade, in case Leverton is cocky enough to accept the booking. I very doubt he will if what Rebecca Reid told us is true. The last thing the Abyss would want is a police officer intimately acquainted with the contents of _Beyond_. I'm sending the email," Sherlock declares.  
  


____________

The next morning, Brackenstall's death has leaked into mainstream media. Headlines are declaring the moral corruption of society and lamenting the invasion of foreign, capitalistic customs such as American Halloween into the realm. Tabloids are having a field day with the fact that the body had not been recognised as such for hours.

"There'll be more protesters, now," John points out over breakfast.

"That should please Rebecca. If her friend _had_ a family, they'd probably be standing there holding signs, too."

Lestrade's background check had confirmed at least that part of Reid's story — that her friend had very little in terms of a support network. It appears that Rebecca had been her only close acquaintance in the city. The cause of death had been an overdose of alcohol and benzodiazepines, only some of them legally prescribed.

"Did Leverton get back to you regarding the _Beyond_ tour?" John asks.

"Yes. He said they're not doing _Beyond_ for the time being, which is the answer I expected."

"That lets Greg off the hook."

"Who?"

"Oh, come off it. I have to say I'm not surprised, either. If any of the stuff Reid said is true, then it's obvious their practices are in a grey area of the law, possibly even criminal. Easy to dodge police scrutiny by just saying they're shutting things down for now. You did tell Lestrade you tried to sign him up, didn't you?" John's brows knit together.

Sherlock rolls his eyes. "Irrelevant. Leverton is a businessman; I doubt those limited extreme tours were a big source of revenue. They sounded more like an ego trip. He wants to be at the forefront of evolution in the business, and there aren't many other directions to go than towards the more extreme end."

"Still, it should occur to a _businessman_ that staging some sort of a funhouse version of Guantanamo is a _bit not good_."

"On the other hand, business must be booming in a horror house that can now boast an actual murder. Wouldn't be surprised if they whip out a ghost story from Brackenstall's death and pretend it's a tribute to her career, somehow."

"We know the killer is not Rebecca since she was seen protesting all night, and there are very few others who have quit their jobs there," John says.

"There is one person on Leverton's list we need to talk to."

"Who?"

"His ex-wife."

"The one whose alimony comes out of the Abyss proceedings? What motive could she have? Didn't Leverton's interview notes say that their divorce was amicable and that she left simply because she changed professions?"

Lestrade had emailed them transcripts of all the staff interviews, including the initial one with Leverton at the NSY headquarters.

Sherlock leans back in his chair. "That's why she left her job at the Abyss, yes, but it doesn't explain the dissolution of the marriage. Maybe Leverton and Brackenstall had an affair — tediously bourgeois motive, of course — but no, I just don't see it. As far as I can tell, Leverton wasn't acting like someone trying to sound less devastated than he actually is to conceal that fact."

"Or maybe it's not a secret anymore."

"None of what the other staff have said pointed in that direction. Only if Brackenstall was a good friend in the context of a colleague does Leverton's demeanour makes sense. He's not acting like someone who's lost a lover. Lestrade agrees," Sherlock adds hastily.

John wonders if the comment is made because he has sometimes argued that Sherlock is hardly the best at reading people when it comes to emotions. Sherlock seems to take pride sometimes in what he sees as rising above such baser things, but John suspects some of it might be compensation for having a difficult time interpreting the feelings of others.

"How many _have_ actually quit?" John asks. He'd seen the list briefly, but not memorised it or counter the names.

"Seven. Four of them have an alibi, and none of the remaining have any discernible motive. One is the ex-wife, Nicola James, and two were students who quit because they got into further education. No conflicts there, no problematic behaviour."

"Of course the ex needs to be looked at to cross all the t’s, dot the i’s, but why does it sound like you really think there's a chance she might have something to do with this?" John asks. "I know you well enough to be able to tell. Go on," he prompts, "tell me."

"You may or may not recall that I asked Reid to make a similar list of people she knows who have quit their job at Abyss. They must have worked together at the start, and as the owner's wife she must have known all the employees, yet Reid omitted James from her list. It begs the question _why_."

______________

Nicola James reminds John of Ella, his own therapist, with the exception that he could actually imagine opening up to James. When he learns she served in Afghanistan as a battlefield nurse it makes sense.

James had met Leverton through a mutual friend who had been hired first as a consultant and later on, as a team member for the _Beyond_ tours. James had worked for Abyss as Oscar's business partner for some time before finishing the formal psychotherapist training she'd begun before joining the Royal Armed Forces. She confirms that their divorce had been amicable, and her assistant confirms that she had appointments all throughout the evening when Abby Brackenstall had been killed. She re-confirms this by showing John, Sherlock and Lestrade her hand-written appointment book where no entries have been crossed over or changed for that night.

Sherlock idly flips through the book, then drops it on her desk. John and Lestrade have taken seats after being prompted so, but Sherlock remains standing.

“Is there something specific I can help you with? I haven’t had much contact with anyone from the Abyss in several years,” James prompts. "I can't imagine how I could be of help, save for some background info."

"You left Abyss to start practicing as a therapist?" Sherlock asks sharply, ignoring her question. He peers into the waste-paper basket, then goes to the window, opening and closing the curtains. John wonders if he's getting antsy about closing the case. Maybe he's decided that this woman might not have any answers, after all.

"Yes. That was always the plan," James says, watching Sherlock as he flits about the room.

She is wearing a white silk blouse and linen trousers with ballet flats. Her thick, greyish blond hair has been combed back into a low ponytail held together with a colourful scrunchie. She couldn't be further from anyone John could imagine working at a house of horrors. She appears a bit older than Oscar, but who is John to judge? He's had a bit of fun with women with whom he's had an even bigger age difference than those two.

"And how does that connect to your divorce?" Sherlock then plunges for.

"It really doesn't."

"Looks like a lucrative practice," Sherlock points out. "Expensive area." James has her own therapy space on a trendy street not too far from the Abyss, and an assistant. "Did your divorce settlement pay for it?"

"No, it didn't. We were on a shoestring back then. The Abyss was still very new."

"You had shares; Oscar bought you out. Wouldn't it have been easier to just hold on to them? Did you have no faith in the business becoming lucrative?"

"I needed liquid funds. It was the only thing we fought about; money for running expenses was tight at the Abyss."

"You served in Afghanistan," John suddenly points out, frowning.

"Yes?" James' smile is very collected.

"How does what they do at the Abyss — I mean, especially the extreme experiences they offer — how do you reconcile that with the therapy training you'd had by then? How do you… how could you condone all that?"

She shrugs. "I didn't handle any part of those experiences. Judging by your tone, you don't approve. As long as the consent process is handled properly, I don't see why adults shouldn't do with their lives whatever they want. Did you know that a group of allied soldiers stationed in Iraq constructed an impromptu haunted attraction at their camp, and that it received a flood of positive feedback? Horror can be cathartic. In a war zone, it can allow you to release pent-up emotions not otherwise socially acceptable to express. That's why the event became important to those troops — it was _therapy_ , one might even say."

"I get that," John counters, "but those are a select group of people prepared for traumatising experiences and trained for the service. It has to be different for civilians, especially those with mental health issues." He's thinking of Rebecca's friend. "Why would someone who doesn't need that outlet, whose life is safe now but wasn't before, choose to go through simulated torture and simulated _rape_? How is that cathartic, hm?"

"It's important to make sure people who sign up for those experiences are well-informed about their choices."

"They're not, though, are they? They sign a waiver which says someone is allowed to harm them to the point of bleeding wounds and bruises," Lestrade says, leaning back and crossing his arms. “It says nothing to warn about the psychological damage. If you can't predict how people react to those tours, how can they provide watertight consent beforehand?”

"I may have disagreed with some of Oscar's artistic choices, but these are legal adults making their own choices," James says amicably.

 _Is it just me, or does that sound a bit rehearsed?_ John wonders, trying to gauge Sherlock's expression to see how he's reacting to James.

"When does it become real? If someone cannot tell apart the things done to them from actual torture, does it matter if they signed a piece of paper?" John presses James further.

"I don't understand why you're interrogating me about all this and not Oscar. It's his pet project; I never helped with running _Beyond_ nor did I design any of it. You said you're here to talk about Abby's death, not… this."

"Did you know her well?" Sherlock asks, now flouncing himself into an armchair and fixing his laser-sharp scrutiny on her.

"No, not well. As far as I knew, she was a good employee and Oscar's friend, that's all."

"Just a friend?"

"Yes."

The question doesn't seem to irritate James further, and John is now inclined to believe that whatever was the motive and whoever killed Brackenstall, it wasn't because of an affair.

"Why do you think the killer chose her?" Sherlock presses.

James frowns. "I couldn't say."

"Do you know Rebecca Reid?"

"No, I can't say that I do."

"Even though there is a photograph framed in Leverton's office in which you are standing with your arm across her shoulder in the opening night party?"

"There were lots of group photos. And lots of parties. Do you remember everyone you've ever stood next to while drunk at a party?"

John wouldn't put it past Sherlock because he doubts the man has voluntarily attended many such parties. He never gets drunk and rarely even has a single drink; he had once declared to John that alcohol is a sedative for lesser minds. John hadn't asked him what he thinks is a suitable enhancer for his massive intellect, then, because he has an inkling about the answer. He's read it in Mycroft's tone and in the scarred veins in the crooks of Sherlock's arms.

Sherlock digs the photo he had described from his jacket pocket. “Perhaps this will jog your memory, then.”

"Hmm… yeah, maybe I do remember her. Young thing. Barely out of uni when she started working there. Left to continue her studies, I think."

"So, if you two worked at the Abyss simultaneously, why would Reid actively try to conceal knowing you _and_ the fact that you quit working there?"

"What do you mean, actively conceal?" James looks a bit alarmed, now.

John isn't surprised. Anyone would be unsettled by Sherlock's unflinching scrutiny.

Sherlock ignores her question, and ploughs on. "Plenty of regular haunted attraction owners want the extreme versions shut down because they think they're over the line and an accidental death is bound to happen eventually," Sherlock says. He is quoting almost verbatim some of the online discussions and interviews John and he had read last night.

"They don't want to see the competition head in that direction because they fear for the safety of their employees if people go berserk out of fear," John adds. "I'm having a hard time believing that a psychotherapist who's seen actual danger and trauma wouldn't be opposed to any of what people like Oscar put their extreme tour clients through."

"One person's horror can be therapeutic for another. You seem to have educated yourself thoroughly with what the naysayers think. What about those clients who report that their experiences have empowered them?" James asks.

John finds it very odd that she'd still defend those practices so fervently. What does she have to gain if they shut the extreme tours down?

"You know Rebecca Reid. And you weren't here when Bracknell was killed," Sherlock declares.

"Excuse me?" James rises to her feet. "I showed you the records––"

Lestrade is regarding Sherlock tiredly. "She had therapy appointments back-to-back that evening. The assistant confirmed her schedule," he reminds him.

"Did you ask the assistant if all of the clients actually showed up?"

"Yes. They all did."

"Did she _see_ them, or was that just confirmed by you?" Sherlock asks the therapist. "One appointment, which coincidentally took place about the same time that Abby Brackenstall was murdered, was with a T. Jeffries, who also had an appointment scheduled two days later. Either the first one never happened, or this Jeffries is in crisis, which seems odd considering you'd jotted down _'final assessment_ ' for this week's appointment. There's a fire escape to the adjoining office space outside your window, and while the rest of the space between the double-glazed window is clean, there is a smudge of wet dust just inside the latching mechanism. Either someone missed a spot, or that window was opened since the cleaning staff was last here. _'Window cleaning_ ' was on your calendar _before_ the Brackenstall murder; you hadn't booked any clients, then. You distracted your assistant, led her to believe the client had arrived, left through the window, returned before the next appointment and either managed to distract her again, or you sent your assistant out on an errand. There was a receipt from the Tesco Metro two streets down from the night of the murder, paid in cash as if someone had given money to your assistant to fetch something. There are two receipts from a Pret-A-Manger in the opposite direction in your wastepaper basket, paid by card so I assume that's the establishment you frequent. You sent her off in a direction from which she wouldn't see the client walk off — or never materialise, since they neither arrived at _or_ left these premises that night."

Nicola James gapes, having blanched and stood up. "How–– how would I even get into the Abyss? They all know me, well, at least many do; I couldn't just walk in the front door and not be noticed!"

"Leverton locks his office but the staff entrance was unlocked on the day of the murder because people slip out for a smoke. Performers and other employees have personal lockers."

"Leverton couldn't even provide us a list of employees who have a set of keys for the staff entrance," Lestrade confirms, "he says that since employees have lockers, they don't worry about theft since the only valuables are in his office. Someone stealing a fake bloody foot wouldn't be much of a disaster."

"You'd know the back corridors and staff assembly times for the Red Circle. Either the staff entrance was unlocked, or you could still have a key from the time you worked there since Leverton doesn't seem to give a whit about keeping a record of them," Sherlock explains triumphantly.

James now looks apprehensive and about to bolt. Lestrade rises to his feet and plants himself between her and the door.

"Why, then?" Sherlock demands, stepping closer to the woman. "Why pretend you and Reid don't know each other? Why Brackenstall — is it because you knew from your time at Abyss that she'd be the most accessible, _convenient_ victim, or did you decide on the day? A rota list in the dressing room would have told you she worked two attractions that day and would be moving in a corridor rarely used because of that. Did she have to die because Leverton starting to really earn from the place made you realise your divorce settlement could have been better if you'd just waited? No, no, no," Sherlock swirls in place, facing John. "That doesn't make sense; you wouldn't _murder_ someone out of such pitiful spite." He whirls around to face his partner. "John, once again you asked the right question. _Why would a battlefield nurse condone simulated torture?_ The answer is, they wouldn't."

Sherlock's smile is indulgent as it is vile — he's caught his prey. Seeing that expression makes John feel practically drunk on admiration. As much as he could try, he'd never see as much as Sherlock does, would never see all the connections. It must be such an intoxicating feeling, seeing it all come together.

"I––" James starts, shaking her head, then swallowing. "He said it himself," she finally spits out through clenched teeth, " _he_ wouldn't go through the shit he forces on clients. Having a near-death experience is just that, a _near_ -death experience, and not everyone is lucky enough to walk away from it unscathed. He has _no idea_. Fucking wimp wouldn't last an hour in Kandahar, yet he thinks he has the right to do these things to people. Oscar doesn't understand anything about real fear."

"Rebecca Reid's friend does. _Did_."

"She never got over what happened to her in _Beyond_ , and there was nothing we could do to stop it from happening again because the worse it sounds, the more people want it. Rebecca sends therapy clients to me who contact her, people who've done the tour and realise, once time has passed, how _not alright_ it all was. Laurie was my client, and it was _obvious_ she shouldn't have ever considered taking the tour, but it only eggs them on when they pretend to tell you that you shouldn't! Especially people who can be easily manipulated and influenced, people who have mental health problems like her. They watch all the interview videos of the stooges who take the tours and then, thanks to Stockholm syndrome and adrenaline, tell you they feel like they _grew as a person_ because they endured having to do those horrible things! Rebecca and I knew that if we protested, if we went to the press, it would just be the US all over again and she'd tried that and nobody _cares_ because nobody here knows about what goes on in the US! We also realised that even if the press promoted the story, it would just be the best kind of free PR. But if the Abyss was already in the press for something else, we could force what happens behind the scenes to light. The whole thing is still in its early stages in England, it's just Oscar and nobody else, so we could stop it if the Abyss got crushed by public opinion!"

"And you thought _murdering_ someone would be the right way to get the story into newspapers?" Lestrade shakes his head, then digs out a pair of cuffs from his pocket. "Nicola James, you are under––"

"Not _yet_ ," Sherlock snarls at Lestrade, holding up his hand. "You chose Brackenstall because she is a legend in the circles. Her death would send ripples abroad, _inside_ the industry instead of just being a scandal here. She was both convenient _and_ the perfect unwitting figurehead for your campaign. Any murder investigation would bring to light what happens in that place, and even if it was just the public outcry against a corpse lying in plain sight for hours while people gawked at such things _for fun_ , you thought you'd get the public on your side."

"They ruin lives!" James exclaims. "They have to be stopped, and this was the only way. There will be more that can’t take it, so losing one person who's complicit is just the price that has to be paid! I tried to help Rebecca's friend, and couldn't. Have you any idea what they did to––"

"We have a pretty good idea what goes on during those tours, yeah," John says tiredly. He can't see why it would warrant murder. Nothing ever does. Laurie's death shouldn't have produced more death. There has to be a better route for preventing it happening again. Maybe, once news of the arrest is released, there will be public scrutiny of the motive. It means that Reid and James might still get what they wanted.

"One life to save countless others," James declares. "They used historical psychological experiments as a basis for those tours. I couldn't be a part of that. Oscar picked my brain about all that stuff and I thought, naïve me, that he was just interested in all that history. Turns out he used all of it for… for… I couldn't be complicit in that."

"So you left."

"Professional haunters… it's a way of life, not a hobby or just a job. Everyone knows that you marry someone who buys into it, or they'll divorce you later. I left, Rebecca left. We knew we couldn't stop him if they painted us as just a disgruntled former employee and an ex-wife. We had to reveal all of it for what it was. There's no aftercare, there's no support for those traumatised by these things. You can't sign away human rights or anticipate what gets triggered. They don't want to scare you they want to _scar_ you!"

"Perhaps you should have just put that on a protest banner instead of killing someone," Sherlock comments.

"You couldn't just write an opinion piece in the Times, then?" John asks angrily, "or go through the proper channels?"

"It was a matter of time before someone got killed on one of those tours, and you all know it," James answers venomously. "People stay silent because they're ashamed. We may have saved hundreds of lives. In Afghanistan, you had to be ready to take one for the team."

"Reid knew about it, then?" John asks. "No wonder she left you out of that list."

"Looks like we've got another stop to make, then," Lestrade comments as he cuffs Nicola James and reads her rights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The concept of a haunted house created by troops for troops is based on what was done [in 2009 in Afghanistan](https://www.dvidshub.net/news/40999/haunted-house-raises-spirits-troops-afghanistan).
> 
> Has extreme immersive horror landed in the UK? Yes, it has. There is, at least, _Cracked — Survival Experience_ , which has been [reviewed by the London Horror Society](https://londonhorrorsociety.co.uk/review-extreme-uk-horror-event-cracked-survival-experience/).
> 
> The killer and her accomplice have been caught, but we're not quite done yet, are we? Some questions still remain…


	5. Epilogue

"I'm not sure they'll survive the competition, but I have to say a part of me kind of hopes this place doesn't turn into some high-tech monstrosity," John says as they walk out the exit of the London Dungeon.

"I have to reiterate my surprise that you wanted to suggest this for a Sunday afternoon activity," Sherlock says and leads John towards the London Eye. The wind is tousling his curls, but it's a warm day, and The Queen's Walk is busy with vendors offering Halloween-themed trinkets and street-performers in ghost and witch gear spinning and juggling LED-lit objects.

John shrugs, tucking his hands into his pockets. "You said you never did stuff like this as a kid. Maybe I was feeling nostalgic and wanted to share."

The London Dungeon, a long-standing landmark among the capital's tourist attractions, turned out to be the opposite of the Abyss: friendly, cheeky actors in outdated sets and simple technical gimmicks. At least the concluding act, a ride where the platform suddenly dropped a few feet down had wrenched a gasp out of Sherlock. He'd grasped John's wrist instinctively, and John had laughed in the dark.

"The demographics of this place are certainly more tourist-focused," Sherlock agrees, squinting in the bright sunlight. "Families seem to be the only local patrons. Maybe the Abyss is already eating into the local clientele. One day, the generations carrying your sort of nostalgia will be gone, and in their place will swarm the social media crowd looking for the next fake near-death experience to post about. Chips?" Sherlock suggests, nodding towards a food cart.

"Don't mind if I do," John agrees. When Sherlock strides off to make the purchase, he digs out his phone to check for new emails. There was a particular one he had been waiting for, after sending a message out a few days earlier:  
  
  


_From: john.h.watson@gmail.com  
To: oscar@londonabyss.co.uk  
Sent: 15th November  
Subject: I can't take it anymore  
Message: Sherlock won't tell me, so I am asking you: what the hell kind of a room did he use his safeword in?  
— J. Watson_

_  
  
From: oscar@londonabyss.co.uk  
To: john.h.watson@gmail.com  
Sent: 16th November  
Subject: Re: I can't take it anymore  
Message: Oh, just something that immediately came to mind when I personally reviewed his pre-screening form. We have a nice little lockable coffin with a false panel on the side, through which a performer can claw at a customer. This is then followed by the bottom dropping. There's a soft landing, of course, but he never got that far. Even just the lid being nailed on nearly did it.  
  
Thank you for finding who deprived us of Abby. Her brother is very grateful also.  
Best wishes, O. Leverton  
  
  
_

"Too much Edgar Allan Poe at too early an age," Sherlock comments dryly from next to John's left ear, making him jump. "Mycroft relished reading me scary stories at bedtime. He has more a sadistic streak than he lets on. The fact that being buried alive was a common topic in late 19th century horror literature isn't surprising; taphophobia was rife in Victorian times due to medical science having not quite worked out how to properly diagnose death," Sherlock adds, glancing disapprovingly at the email exchange still visible on John's phone. "I knew your curiosity would get the better of you."

An older man walks past carrying the Daily Mail — the _Daily Fail_ , as the Holmes brothers tend to call it — and a large headline is declaring the advent of new legislation being drafted to regulate the entertainment industry's treatment of clients. The Abyss has already been cited in multiple articles as a warning example.

There will be no more _Beyond_ tours. That should please Nicola James and Rebecca Reid as they sit behind bars for the conspiracy to murder Abigail Brackenstall. Perhaps it will even give a bit of wind in the sails of their covert campaign to end the extreme immersive horror industry. Leverton has given countless interviews, still defending more extreme haunted attractions by saying that they were born because people wanted them. Because, at one of the US attractions, for the last tour of the day, the performers always pushed the envelope and put in an extra effort, and more and more people kept asking for such an approach to be available more. Still, how that could have escalated to being submerged in tanks with live eels, shoving sex toys down people's throats or sticking clients' heads into boxes with live bees, John just cannot fathom.

"Did Lestrade really get through the whole _Red Circle_?" he asks, slipping his phone in his pocket and receiving a wooden fork so that he can share the chips liberally coated with ketchup.

Sherlock takes a seat next to him with his own portion. "Yes. Apparently, he had made a joke out of his interview form and put the things he finds the _least_ bit frightening on it."

John chuckles. "I wonder what Mycroft would put on his."

"The word _classified_ , of course. Were he compelled somehow to offer truthfully, _clowns_ is what he'd get thrown at him in the _Red Circle_."

"I wonder if we could trick him into going? Tell him someone's stolen state secrets and hidden them there?" John suggests with a grin, then sobers up. "It does sound scary and messed up, what they did to you," he offers. _Being pawed at by a stranger while being locked into a narrow space in the dark should be enough to frighten just about anyone_ , he thinks, _especially someone who has issues with people touching him_. John has to agree with at least one part of Leverton's hyperbole about the industry: it does require a keen psychological eye to really get into people's heads like that, to make them face the worst things they fear, and believe that they _want_ _it_. It's just that John doubts that experience is really very constructive or educational, when it's not conducted by a trained therapist as controlled, gradual exposure therapy.

"Let's stick to solving gruesome murders, shall we?" Sherlock asks.

"And chasing arsonists in Brompton," John agrees, shoving three chips into his mouth at once. "And pissing off Chinese circus gangsters."

"And exposing hallucinogen-laced supernatural hoaxes created by the military," Sherlock adds to the list.

"We're a pair of hypocrites, aren't we, judging those people who want to do _The Red Circle_ and _Beyond_?"

"They should consider themselves lucky that they can't actually get killed on those tours. Arguably."

John nods. "Rebecca was convinced it was only a matter of time. And people will still keep signing up. The organisers telling them they shouldn't is only going to encourage them, and so will those exposé videos."

"I believe it was the great P.T. Barnum who said that there is a sucker born every minute, and that one never lost a dollar underestimating the taste of the great public."

____________

A month later, John is yawning while watching Sherlock scraping something off a toe at the Barts morgue. He could use a coffee and wonders if Molly might be able to procure some for him. He doesn't really want to send her on such errands because it feels demeaning to ask after watching Sherlock bossing her around, but maybe she could direct him to the staff break room?

Just then, Molly walks in, hair in her usual neat ponytail and a white coat on. She doesn't wear it when doing autopsies — it's just scrubs, then — but tends to don it for when Met representatives or other visitors appear in connection to a criminal case.

"We let ourselves in," John says sheepishly. "I think he's nicked someone's keycard again."

Molly is unfazed by this. "At least you're with him. He's less likely to abscond with body parts that way."

"He's––– he's done that?" John asks, then realises the question is probably rhetorical. He can even imagine the excuses delivered in Sherlock's regally indignant baritone: ' _it's not as if he was using his kneecaps anymore!_ '

Sherlock is now done with the toes and has moved on to smearing something he's found inside a trouser leg onto a microscope slide.

"You caught the Abyss killer, then?" Molly asks, her tone eagerly curious. "Haven't seen Lestrade so couldn't ask him, but there was something in the press."

"Didn't know you were interested in the case," John replies. "Nothing very interesting about the MO. But yeah, we caught her. Former employee who wanted the place shut down. Thought that killing one person would be justified if they stopped traumatising people permanently with their extreme victim experience or whatever it was called."

" _The Abyss Beyond_?" Molly asks.

Sherlock, who has just slipped the microscope slide into a ziplock bag, perks up at the mention. "You've heard of it?"

"Yes," Molly says brightly. "My boyfriend got me in on his reservation — he loves haunted houses, got himself on the presales list the minute he learned that the Abyss was opening and joined some Facebook group for the limited tours. He only had to wait for eight months. He safeworded out after twenty minutes, bless him while I didn't even get close to using mine. Wasn't that bad, really, since you knew it was all for a laugh. What?" she asks, when she finds the two men staring at her with their jaws dropped.

**— The End —**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been to the London Dungeon and was greatly pleased with the dedication and charm of the staff.
> 
> Thank you for reading. This was a fun and very eye-opening story to write, and a bit different as a Halloween offering since there turned out to be nothing supernatural going on, just humans being… human.
> 
> Betaed with enthusiasm by Elldotsee. She's doing a proper ghost story this Halloween which I highly [recommend checking out](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27066661).


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